I'M DONE. OFFICIALLY MY FAVORITE BOOK OF 2017. EVERYONE ELSE CAN GO HOME
Book Rating: PG-13
Language: PG (Uses of d*mn. Uses the word negro a lot which is acceptable for the time period, but still).
Violence: PG-13 (Brutal murders, descriptions of ritual sacrifices. Dude, I was freaked).
Sex: PG (No sex, but there are lusty inner thoughts).
Drugs/Alcohol: PG (It was the time of bootlegging and speakeasies. Everyone drank. Evie has a deep love for gin and is obviously inebriated in several scenes).
Lemme tell you, I have never read a book that left me as scared, intrigued, and in love than this one. I can’t even begin to explain how much I love this story. It had a dynamic main character, no cases of insta-love, a bad guy with cult-like beliefs and a dark childhood, secondary characters that I loved equally, and the enchanting background of 1920’s New York City.
I have to commend Libba Bray for the amount of obvious research that went into The Diviners. It felt like I was in 1920’s New York with the speakeasies and mob bosses and religious and political turmoil. She researched the slang and language of the 1920’s that made it so much more realistic and believable. I think that if anyone else had tried to write a book using 1920’s slang, it wouldn’t go nearly as well as Bray’s. I would have had so much more trouble deciphering it if it weren’t for the immersive writing and captivating characters.
You don’t even understand how grateful I am for the lack of insta-love and for an unobvious love interest. This is so rare in YA fiction so The Diviners was like a breath of fresh air. At one point or another, I thought Evie would end up with Sam, T.S. Woodhouse, Jericho, or Memphis. My favorite romances are slow-burning because it is literally the slimmest of odds that you meet someone and decide they are your forever love in the first day, but literally every person in YA seems to have this happen to them. I was so happy when Evie happened to befriend three out of the four main men in her life and each of the friendships kept me guessing on where they were going to go. And it wasn’t just the relationships between Evie and the boys, but also the strong female friendships.
Upon coming to New York, Evie reconnects with her old friend and pen pal, Mabel. Mabel is the daughter of two social justice warriors and sometimes feels small and insignificant. When Evie comes along, her world becomes one of intrigue, parties, and adventures (something I love about Evie). Then the girls meet Theta, a Ziegfeld girl, who lives in the same building as they do. Evie instantly wants to befriend her, but Mabel is hesitant because Theta is otherworldly, tall, beautiful, graceful, and famous. What I love is that Theta could have easily been written off as a bully because she fits the typical girl-bully image of insanely popular and beautiful, but instead, she becomes one of Evie’s closest friends with her own tragic back-story. Bray humanized her goddess-like qualities which made me so happy.
Now, Evie. She was deep and complicated. She was shallow at times, but as Jericho put it, had “an unusual kind streak.” Sometimes she was scared and a little bit ditzy and she drank a little too much, but that’s the thing about compelling main characters. They have their flaws and their flaws are the forces that make them relatable and lovable and passionate about certain aspects in their lives. I wasn’t so sure about Evie in the beginning because she was so shallow and had a very London Tipton-esque YAY MEEEE attitude and only desired to be the center of attention. But Evie grew as a character and became someone whose spunk I really came to admire. She still liked the attention and was still a little shallow, but it came to be something that enhanced her character instead of detracting from it. I love me some main character growth.
I AM ALSO SO HAPPY WITH THE PLOT. I’ve always been interested in the psychology of serial/rampage killers (I was a forensic psychology major at one point) and this book just had me hooked from the beginning until the very end. It honestly terrified me at points and my heart was pounding heavily in my chest. Naughty John’s ritual murders were terrible and horrifying, but fascinating in the way they adhered to each ritual sacrifice in the cult bible, The Book of the Brethren. There were nights when I would put the book down at about 11 o’clock at night and then have to watch an episode of The Office just to get my mind off of Naughty John and the ways he would string up his victims before trying to go to sleep. The plot was riveting as the characters slowly tried to untangle the mystery behind the ritual killings.
Ultimately, this book has officially made it into my “favorites” list. I’ve heard some very questionable things about the second book in the series, but I’m excited to read it nonetheless. This book is everything I could have hoped for.
“The land was a pledge, and the land was an idea of freedom, born from the collective yearning of a restless nation built on dreams. Every rock, every creek, every sunrise and sunset seemed a bargain well-struck, a guarantee of more.”
And for my favorite quote:
“…She can’t even keep up with her own children, who run around like a bunch of fools in a foolyard.”
Good ol’ Aunt Octavia*Check out my other reviews -->here<--
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adjö,
lauren.
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